Ice Cream Adventures & Recipes
by Peter Gerard – August 30th, 2009 — chocolate, event, recipe, sorbet
We are big fans of Chocolate & Chile here and saw the opportunity to take our recipes to a new level for our annual Mexican party at John’s house. Lately I have been championing Chocolate Sorbet as the new pinnacle of chocolatey frozenness. It is the dark chocolate of the ice cream world, with an intensely dark flavour and smooth, creamy texture. On tasting, people are often surprised to learn it’s actually a sorbet.
by Peter Gerard – December 28th, 2008 — chocolate, gelato, ice cream, recipe
We recently made a batch of Chocolate Gelato that was to be served to a 12-year-old girl. Knowing that the young ones among us are often less keen on super dark chocolate I reduced the cocoa powder to just 1/4 cup, hoping that would please her. Unfortunately it was still “too chocolatey and not creamy enough”. Fair enough. I take criticism and try to learn from it.
A few months ago my ice cream services were won in a charity raffle, and the winner requested a batch of chocolate ice cream for a kids party today. So I’m trying a new recipe that should be less dark and more creamy and will hopefully please the young’uns. Not wanting to completely eschew our tried and tested Gelato recipe, I’ve made some simple modifications. My experience has shown that adding a pint of double cream to a gelato results in a mixture way too thick to freeze so I got a pint of single cream and I also reduced the cocoa powder right down. Continue reading →
by Peter Gerard – August 20th, 2008 — chocolate, ice cream, recipe
Back for another helping of ice cream and comedy at the Lemoncustard Comedy Club, we followed on the previous week’s successful chocolate chip cookie dough. I don’t often do chunky style ice creams, but am becoming a big fan.
My friend John was shopping at some obscure Scandinavian furniture shop and had the epiphanic idea to chop up some Daim bars and stir them into a batch of vanilla ice cream. So that’s just what we did…
by Peter Gerard – August 18th, 2008 — chocolate, ice cream, recipe
Back at the Fringe last week we decided to spice things up a bit for the Lemon Custard Comedy Club.
A few days before, Leo met Steph, a nice Canadian selling cookies, and invited her to combine powers with the White Mountain. I couldn’t help thinking about Ernie and the Cookie Monster sharing milk and cookies back in the day.
by Dr Big D – June 21st, 2008 — chocolate, ice cream, recipe, sorbet, travel
We are finally publishing Dr. Big D’s travelogue from our Outer Hebridean Ice Cream Adventure. We are also producing a short film about this trip and will keep you posted about its progress. Enjoy!
Why did we choose an ice cream adventure in the Outer Hebrides? Was it just to make life difficult for ourselves? You could argue that if that was the idea, we should have gone to Iraq, Nepal or China. Scotland on the other hand is the itinerant cranker’s dream. The sparse but widely dispersed communities mean that there’s an abundance of wee shops dotted around. Even if you’re not an ice cream maker, the basic ingredients of ice cream (cream, milk and sugar) are staples so most shops stock them. But what about the ice, you may ask? Well due to the popularity of frozen ready-meals most of these little shops also have freezers and many a modern Scot now quite likes an ice cube in his dram. Hence ice is also relatively easy to come by too. And who could resist holidaying in the stunning scenery of the Scottish islands especially in that perfect time of year when there is still daylight but the midges haven’t got going yet.
Continue reading →
by Peter Gerard – March 20th, 2008 — chocolate, ice cream, recipe
Though our chocolate gelato recipe produces an incredible result, it’s an awful lot of work and takes a long time to prepare and chill before you can freeze it. I eventually decided that there is no reason why the Russell Recipe should not produce a quality chocolate ice cream.
by Peter Gerard – March 18th, 2008 — chocolate, gelato, ice cream, recipe
When I was a kid I did not like chocolate ice cream. Strange as it seems now, I didn’t really have any interest in the stuff. If I was given a serving of Neapolitan ice cream I would devour the pink and white stripes as quickly as possible to avoid accidentally eating any meltings from the brown stripe. Don’t get me wrong, I always loved chocolate, especially dark chocolate. I didn’t even understand why I didn’t like chocolate ice cream.
And then several years ago I went to Italy. Italians don’t mess around with ice cream. True Italian gelato can be found in few places in the world, but in Italy there seems to be a law requiring at least one quality gelateria in every square mile. Naturally, I did my best to try them all. But after 4 or more triple-scoop cones per day for a couple weeks, I admitted defeat. It would take me several lifetimes to sample every flavour in every gelateria. But along the way, I came across something very exciting: delicious chocolate gelato!
I asked Aunt Nancy if she knew how to make chocolate ice cream, but she said Mike and Sam had tried to use chocolate milk in the Russell recipe and had unsatisfying results. This caused me to question my firm lifelong belief that the Russell Recipe never fails. (Note: Lately I have reconfirmed this undeniable truth by making a successful chocolate and coconut ice cream with the Russell Recipe…)
